


What Ends Forever

by TerribleImaginings



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, ps o wrote this and posted it on fanfiction before they got back from tartarus, shhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 06:01:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3163952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerribleImaginings/pseuds/TerribleImaginings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy and Annabeth survived Tartarus, but nothing is the same after they come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Ends Forever

Annabeth's eyes weren't gray anymore.

That was the first thing Percy noticed when he could look at her again.

Maybe someone else wouldn't have seen the change, but the Sea Prince couldn't escape it.

Those eyes that had always been stormy were now more of a mixture; purple, black, white. Nothing as simple as the swirling gray that they used to be. They were dangerous, warning of irreparable damage. She didn't speak. Annabeth, strong, courageous Annabeth had fallen mute and refused to eat on most days.

On the worst days, no one could say where she was. No one could say if she was trying to drown herself in the lake or hiking aimlessly in the forest, on a quest for something her insanity couldn't name, something she herself probably didn't even know. Those were the worst days, but the best weren't much better, either. No matter how bad Percy was on his worst, one glance into Annabeth's wild eyes cured him of any self-pity.

It had been years since they'd fallen—since Percy had most literally cast his life into hell. Four? Five? Ten? Neither Percy nor the daughter of Athena would be able to tell you. They wouldn't be able to tell you anything relevant at all. No one knew what they'd been through, no one could get more than a few grunts out of Percy at a time, and no one had the will to try anymore.

Looking back on it, Percy knew he was punishing the people around him by not letting them in; it wasn't their fault that Percy's hand went with Annabeth into the deepest layer of hell and, in most senses, died there. It wasn't their fault that things that are broken sometimes don't want to be fixed. But still, as the Son of Poseidon moped around camp for months on end, no longer feeling at home with his mother, or anywhere, really, he couldn't help his freezing attitude towards any other being. And still, no one blamed him.

Annabeth was found in the woods, some ten years after the initial incident, insane and bleeding and lacking a pulse—presumably attacked by one of the free monsters on the camp grounds. Tears were shed and words of condolence were tossed between campers and old friends, but they all knew she had been dead when her legs carried her out of Tartarus. Percy's voice spoke over her grave, and everyone assumed it would share the story that was now his burden alone with the whole of them. When all he said was, "The choice for good isn't always a good one," before stroking her flaxen hair and heading back to his cabin, the entire camp was blanketed in a silent awe.

He would dream of her face, of her clammy, tired hands clinging to him before he fell into the blackness, until his breath stopped. His own hands would reach for her, claw themselves bloody and cold. Her eyes would haunt his tired flesh and taunt his mind with their frightening wit. The warmth of her arm against his waist, of her lips against his temple would torture him until he, too, was overcome with insanity completely.

But he did not love her, in the end.

No.

In the end, all he felt was loneliness for the gray eyes he remembered.


End file.
